Supernatural thriller a television event

supernatural thriller that avoids obvious gore and morbid cliches, it is nothing less than a television event.

While "The Walking Dead" has scored

ratings gold with rotting corpses and stumbling zombies, "The Returned" asks viewers to ponder the personal, emotional and spiritual aspects of a profound mystery.

Four years after a horrific school bus accident claims the lives of scores of students, one of them, 15-year-old Camille (Yara Pilartz), simply walks home and greets her mother as if she had never left. Her twin sister, Lena (Jenna Thiam), now 19, recoils in horror at her sister's presence and her parents' attempt to act "normal." The dead aren't supposed to come back. Here, even the dead know that.

And Camille is not alone.

Over the course of eight epi-

sodes, airing Thursdays at 9 p.m., we learn the back story of other "returned" characters. A handsome young man killed on his wedding day. A small, seemingly mute boy who literally haunts an emotionally fragile nurse. We also discover that one or more of the returned may be linked to a series of gruesome attacks that stopped some seven years before.

And why is the water behind the town's dam suddenly receding, revealing more long-drowned secrets?

Featuring a haunting soundtrack, credible, matter-of-fact dialogue and frequent moments of powerful silence, "The Re turned" makes the most of its setting, an Alpine village that's picturesque and vaguely eerie. Not unlike the Stephen King mystery "Under the Dome," the insular town itself becomes a major character. But "The Returned" is much more understated than any King tale. It's nearly stripped of any overtly gothic affectations. It's the realism and icy modernity that get under your skin.

Presented in French with English subtitles, "The Re turned" is already an acclaimed international hit -- and with much justification. A&E plans to turn it into an American series. But there's no reason to wait for that.